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The Golden Dawn isn't a story that began in 2012. The "men and women in the black shirts" were always near you, they lived among you, for many years. Some of you wouldn't take them seriously, some of you were comforted in your bourgeois dream, but we said that our time would come, our age still hasn't begun because we aren't the quiet birds of peacetime, we are birds of the storm and the hurricane. The storm came, the hurricane came and with them we came - we, the "men and women in the black shirts". In these pages , you will read part of our story...

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Financial Times: Golden Dawn is the only party that helps the poor!

In
the 1980s, Christos Papadimitriou had a high-flying career setting up
intensive care units at hospitals across Greece. Now retired, the doctor
has found a new way to practice medicine: as an unpaid medical adviser
to the neo-Nazi Social Nationalist Golden Dawn party.

Tens of thousands of Greeks lost access to the state healthcare system when
they became unemployed and can’t afford private treatment. They [Golden
Dawn] are trying to help, so I volunteered,” the French-trained
physician said in his cramped consulting room at the party’s Athens
headquarters.

Papadimitriou takes medical histories from patients at twice-weekly
sessions, he says, and recommends specialists from a list of 150 doctors
who offer their services free of charge to impoverished Golden Dawn
supporters.

"The state system is now desperately underfunded because of the
crisis. Families don’t keep up with vaccinations, for example, and
psychiatric help is hard to find,” he adds. “Golden Dawn’s network helps
fill the gaps.”

Golden Dawn exploded on to Greece’s political scene from the wreckage of a devastating economic crisis
that erased more than a quarter of the country’s economic output over
five years and pushed unemployment above 26 per cent. Its members have
become known for their menacing black shirts, strident anti-immigrant
rhetoric and Nazi-style torchlit rallies.

While the welfare programme pursued by Dr Papadimitriou is a less
appreciated part of its appeal, party leaders are relying on it as they
try to establish deep roots in Greek society for years to come.
The softer approach is already finding a receptive audience among the
wide swath of the Greek population that has felt abandoned as the
country’s crisis-hit government has been forced to slash social spending
to comply with the terms of its international bailout.

“The crisis has changed the way voters interact with political
parties,” said Antonis Ellinas, a political-science professor at Cyprus
University. “Golden Dawn seems to have found a way to offer something to
voters through its social programme and thus consolidate its support.”
As well as medical advice, Golden Dawn activists regularly distribute
food to needy families, provided they are Greek citizens not
immigrants. The handouts have been curtailed since parliament voted to
cut the party’s €800,000 annual allocation of state funding.

October
2013: Greece cracks down on the far-right Golden Dawn party after
several members were arrested following the killing of an anti-fascist
rapper.

Yet its 16 lawmakers still contribute almost 60 per cent of their
salaries to “social welfare action to alleviate poverty and maintain the
dignity of Greek patriots”, says Ilias Panayiotaros, a Golden Dawn
deputy for Athens.
Angeliki Papadopoulou says her family began receiving food aid from
the party after her husband, a carpenter, lost his job two years ago:
“They used to deliver enough to fill the refrigerator twice a
month . . . Now it’s less often but it still makes a big difference.”
The jobless rate in Ano Liosia, Mrs Papadopoulou’s neighborhood in
western Athens, is 70 per cent, more than double the national average.“All our extended family will vote for Golden Dawn and so will a lot
of other people around here,” she says. “They were there for us when the
state wasn’t helping and neither were any of the other political
parties.”

With EU elections looming
later this month, Golden Dawn is polling at 7-8 per cent, putting it in
third place along with a new centre-left party To Potami, or River,
behind the governing centre-right New Democracy party and Syriza, the
leftwing opposition.

Ilias Kasidiaris,
a former army commando running for mayor of Athens at local government
elections being held on May 18 and May 25, is doing better with 12 per
cent, according to an opinion poll published last weekend.

“Support for the extreme right is definitely in double digits even
though it doesn’t always show up in our figures,” said a Greek pollster
who declined to be identified.
The bulk of Golden Dawn’s voters used to support New Democracy, but
have shifted to the right amid discontent with a traditional political
class they blame for the economic crisis, the pollster said.
Until now, Golden Dawn has been more associated with street violence than public health.
Its founder and leader, Nikos Mihaloliakos, was jailed last year in a
crackdown prompted by the fatal stabbing of an anti-fascist rap artist
by a self-admitted Golden Dawn supporter. Two young Golden Dawn members
were killed last November in an apparent revenge attack for the rapper’s
death.
“We heard shots and we rushed out on the office balcony,” a burly
24-year-old dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans as he pointed to the
spot on the pavement outside the party offices where his comrades were
shot. “It was just like a movie.”

Although it is hard to verify how many medical patients Golden Dawn
has served, much of its appeal owes to the sorry state of Greece’s
healthcare system.
A chaotic two-year overhaul of the state health system aimed at
reducing costs and corruption has curtailed services and driven
thousands of Greek doctors to seek work in other EU countries. Even
before that, patients often languished for months waiting for
non-emergency surgery or resorted to paying a cash bribe, known as a
“fakelaki”, for hospital services.
With a recommendation from Dr Papadimitriou, Golden Dawn’s supporters
can avoid such hazards and be seen by a specialist – almost always at
no charge.

“We check back with the patient to make sure the doctor they saw has
kept their word and not asked for a fee,” says Jenny Christou, a
professional nurse who is married to a Golden Dawn lawmaker.
Greece’s social welfare ministry did not return calls seeking comment
about Golden Dawn’s activities. In general, though, the government has
welcomed pro bono activities to ease the strain on the state system.[lie]
As for Dr Papadimitriou, he shrugged when asked if he felt conflicted
about providing medical work for a political party implicated in
violence – and even murder.
“I’m aware of the allegations about violence involving party members,
but I don’t have any personal knowledge,” he said. “My role here is
about obtaining medical care for the people who contact us for help.”

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